


ready to call this love

by yewgrove



Series: it is what you have. [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Asexual Character, First Kiss, Good Cows, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Miscommunication, and then a lot of actual communication, post-159; pre-160, they're both dealing with a lot of stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21981346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yewgrove/pseuds/yewgrove
Summary: How is Martin supposed to tell Jon that he panicked, stupidly, when the lovely old lady down the village asked him what they were doing in this part of the world?Got the shopping! Oh, by the way, we're married now! Whole village thinks we're on our honeymoon, hope you don't mind!
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: it is what you have. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685461
Comments: 94
Kudos: 1510





	ready to call this love

**Author's Note:**

> writing this was excruciating. they're in love. hope everyone's having a happy hiatus!
> 
> title is from 'ready to call this love' by mika
> 
> this fic is ceremonially dedicated to noah for making me think about their cooking skills or lack thereof

Jon gets back from the village half an hour earlier than he ought to have, at least, and without the shopping.

He throws the empty shopping bags onto the sofa (one dusty wicker basket they’d found under the stairs, and a collection of carefully-preserved plastic Tesco bags they’d scrounged from the back of Daisy’s car, because apparently she’s fastidious about avoiding the 10p bag charge), and storms across to the kitchen table where Martin has been whiling away the afternoon with one of his notebooks. Martin drops his pen, panic starting to swirl through him as he notices the expression of grim preoccupation on Jon’s face. _Not yet. Please, not yet._

‘Jon? What —’

‘We have to leave.’ Jon’s voice is harsh with urgency. He runs his hands back through his hair, ineffectually scraping it out of his eyes; he’s lost his hairband again, and his hair is spiderwebbed to his forehead with wind and exertion. ‘I thought we’d have more time before they found us. I’m sorry. We should leave as soon as possible. Once we’re away from the village we can find a payphone, call Basira, see if she has any next moves.’

‘Jon, _wait_.’ Martin grabs for his hand, half to get him to pause in his frantic motions, half just on autopilot, because he’s afraid and Jon is afraid and apparently that's all it takes to get them reaching for each other. ‘Tell me what's happened. Is anyone coming here? Anyone following you?’

Jon shakes his head no, but his eyes are still filled with that sick urgency. 'I don't know what it is; I assume it's El— _Jonah_ , but it could be one of the others, Mother of Puppets maybe. I don't know how, but they've found us. I suppose it was too much to ask that we could stay hidden for long.’ 

‘Oh, god,’ Martin says. ‘Okay, okay, right. Did you, I don't know, speak to them? Did they tell you what they wanted?’

‘I just ran.’ Jon looks sick. ‘It was… it wasn't Elias himself, or Annabelle Cane, or anyone obvious. They didn't _do_ anything. It was the woman in the shop. She… knew… more than she should have. If she knows who we are, that means that the Entities can Know _where_ we are. Maybe they know already. Maybe this was a warning; maybe we're doing exactly what they want.’

‘The woman in the — wait, you mean Mrs Aird?’ The lady who ran the tiny grocery in the village was sixty at least, but with a laugh that made her seem twice as young. Martin had _chatted_ with her, for goodness' sake. ‘What's wrong with her?’

‘What's wrong with — she's working for them. Magnus, or Cane, or someone. How do you know her name?’

‘We've been getting the shopping from her for three weeks now!’ Martin's aware that he's snapping, defensive, but there's no time to remedy it. ‘We, you know, chat!’

‘Great. Wonderful. You've been, what, handing over details of our life here to everyone you meet? It's no wonder they found us.’

Jon sounds like he used to back when they first started working in the Archives. He sounds tense, and frustrated, and utterly judgemental, and Martin can't help a flinch.

Jon catches it, and his face gets even more drawn and sick. His wrist is still trapped under Martin's (sweating) palm. He revolves it, grabs hold of Martin's fingers in turn.

‘I'm sorry,’ he says. ‘I apologise. It's… been a bad afternoon. I shouldn't have taken it out on you.’

Martin's grip on Jon's fingers is too tight, he knows, but loosening it seems impossible. ‘It's alright,’ he says, and stumbles over the words. ‘Just… tell me what happened? Exactly?’

Jon looks at their hands, briefly. His glance sifts around the kitchen, looking for someplace to land; his other hand is gripping the edge of the table. ‘She said hello, as I went into the shop. Called me Jon. I _assumed_ it was you who had told her that.’

Martin had. Among other things. There’s a faint sort of giddy nervousness starting to uncoil from around his clenched heart, as the pieces begin coming together.

‘Sorry,’ he starts. Jon cuts him off.

‘It's not your fault.’ Continuing seems to take him a little effort. He seems askew. Embarrassed. ‘She knew. Well. More about me than just my name. She asked after you.’

‘Still not seeing anything weird so far,’ Martin says. There's still a chance for Mrs Aird's eyes to start glowing, or for her to sprout some extra limbs, or something that won't be all Martin's fault. The look on Jon's face, however, isn't giving him much hope.

‘What she said was.’ Jon clears his throat. ‘She asked me how _my nice young man_ was. Told me this part of the world was a beautiful place for a couple in love.’ He enunciates the final words heavily, thickly. ‘I don't know how she found out about my — well. Anyway. If she knows where we are, then we're not safe here any more.’

Martin closes his eyes for a second, relief and guilt crashing over him. They're still safe, can still stay here; there's nothing supernatural. The panic in Jon's face and the strength of his grip are all Martin's fault.

He ought to have told Jon when it happened. Not that he’d thought it was life-threatening, or even important, really, beyond the way that it was playing the absolute bloody fool with Martin’s emotional health and wellbeing, but even so. He’d _known_ that keeping secrets from each other felt like a bad idea.

On the other hand: how do you tell someone something like that? And not just Someone, but the man you're in love with, the man who saved your life and held your hand as he did it, who's been sleeping next to you to chase away the nightmares and who leans into your warmth unconsciously whenever he gets the chance, who obviously cares for you but hasn't said a word about it, let alone given you anything more than a friendly brush of the hand. _How_ is Martin supposed to tell Jon that he panicked, stupidly, when the lovely old lady down the village asked him what they were doing in this part of the world? _Got the shopping! Oh, by the way, we're married now! Whole village thinks we're on our honeymoon, hope you don't mind!_

Jon chafes his hand against Martin's, clearly urgent to get moving. Martin _hates_ seeing him scared like this. God, there's no way Jon is going to take this well.

‘It's alright,’ he manages to say, tripping with nauseous guilt. He lets go, unwinds his fingers from Jon's, because he's pretty sure Jon won't want to be touching him for this next bit. ‘It's not… Beholding, or those damn spiders, or anything, you know.’ _Spooky_ might make Jon laugh, if they weren't both so highly strung right now. He decides not to risk it. ‘Not anything supernatural.’

He hazards a glance down at Jon, who's frowning slightly. His tapping has stilled.

‘What do you mean? It must be, otherwise how did she —’ Then he cuts himself off, carefully. ‘Martin.’

Martin can _hear_ himself blushing, a furious pounding red. This is agony, but Jon has got to know what an idiot Martin's been, so he pushes on somehow.

‘I, um.’ His voice scratches, climbing up through his register with its usual unstoppable progress. ‘Well, you know I said we chatted? It's possible I might have given her the, the wrong impression of our current. Um. Relationship.’

Jon doesn't ask. He reaches out again and grabs Martin's wrist, hard. Martin can _feel_ how badly he wants to ask, to Ask, how he's clinging on to his control.

‘She asked me what we were doing in Scotland.’ The words are tumbling easily now, nothing to do with Jon, just the weight of Martin's own stupid guilt and relief pushing themselves out of his mouth. ‘She wanted to know why we were visiting here, how long, how we were liking it, and she called you _my young man_ when she asked and I didn't have the heart to correct her, she clearly thought we were, you know, together. I blanked, just totally blanked, and I couldn't tell her that we were just a couple of guys on a, a fun mates' trip, let alone hiding from the law or fear itself or the end of the _world_. It seemed like the easiest excuse to tell her that we were here, um. On our honeymoon.’

It’s a good five seconds before Jon speaks. He’s rigid, frozen, his hand like a vice on Martin’s wrist. When he does finally move, his voice is cautious, flat. ‘On our honeymoon.’

It sounds even worse when Jon says it, somehow. Martin bites back a plaintive wail of _See, this is why I didn’t tell you!_ , because it’s still not an excuse. ‘Sorry,’ he says, instead.

‘To clarify,’ Jon follows, ‘the woman in the shop does not know anything about me, beyond what you told her.’

‘Yes?’ says Martin. ‘I mean, I can’t be entirely sure, I suppose, but from what you’re saying… I mean, she thinks we’re married, so.’

Finally, Jon lets go of Martin’s wrist. Martin instantly misses his touch. Jon reaches blindly behind him for one of Daisy’s mismatched kitchen stools, drags it towards himself and sits down. His elbows are leaning against the rough wood of the table like he’s trying to dig into it. His hands are gripping his hair, and his face is covered by the shelter of his forearms.

‘Sorry,’ Martin says again, wretchedly.

‘We’re still safe here. That’s what counts.’ Jon’s voice is muffled.

‘Yeah,’ says Martin, ‘but, still. I should have told you.’

'Why didn’t you?’ Jon lets go of his hair and looks up at Martin, and Martin has a horrible moment in which he thinks Jon might be crying. His eyes are dry, but bright, almost feverish. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Martin almost laughs. ‘We’re doing this now?’ he says, weakly.

‘Please.’ Jon looks and sounds almost as weak as Martin feels.

‘Alright.’ It’s not like things can get any _more_ humiliating. The instinct to vanish is still hovering around him, pushing at the edges, nudging him to duck away, whispering how easy it would be to avoid having to deal with this. Martin bites it down, stands his ground. ‘Truth is, I didn’t tell you because I was embarrassed. The version she believed was. Nice. It was nice to be able to pretend, just for _once_ , that things with us were… normal. Simple. That we could really just be… It was stupid, I know. And I didn’t want it to bother you.’

‘Bother me,’ Jon says.

‘It’s backfired a bit now, of course, but I did really want to avoid bothering you with it. I figured you’d. I don’t know, mind.’

‘Martin.’ Jon’s voice, laced with something Martin can’t identify, gives a wobble. He’s still staring at Martin, eyes wide. ‘I don’t _mind_. Why would you think I’d mind?’

Martin takes a mental step backwards. He starts to answer, and has to stop almost immediately, because he’s coming up empty. He’d just… assumed. Jon was Jon. He knew Jon cared about him, of course. Even disregarding their encounter in the Lonely, he’d known for a while that he mattered to Jon in some capacity, however difficult it had been to really recognise that at the time. He’d seen the strength of Jon’s affection, his determination to care for Martin, as he’d found him on the beach, and he’d kept watching, exhausted and bewildered, as Jon had taken his hand and refused to let it go as they walked out together, all the way back to Martin’s flat and then, every chance he got, on the long drive up to Scotland. Jon had seemed happy here with Martin, despite the isolated location and the complete lack of things to do; he hadn’t shown any signs of boredom, as they spent their time finding ways to fill the day, Jon talking to Martin with an open, settled fullness to his voice that Martin had worked out, despite any prior evidence, to be what Contented Jon sounded like. Jon had collapsed into the one bed their first night at the safehouse, and had given a scathing expression of complete and utter affront when Martin had mumbled something about the sofa, and had rolled to one side to let Martin in and then rolled back again towards Martin’s warmth, like he didn’t want to let Martin get too far away. Neither of them had really wanted to let the other out of their sight at that point.

But. They’d got there, they’d arrived, and then they’d just sort of stayed like that. Jon had taken to grabbing his arm, or idly brushing his hand to get his attention (or, once, to indicate that he’d wanted Martin to reach something from the top shelf in the kitchen, which Martin had still not recovered from). But they didn’t _talk_ about it. Their intimacy had shifted, but the barrier Martin was used to, the one that had kept him from making even more of a fool of himself around Jon through years and years of crush-become-love, was still there. If anything, it felt more charged now, a physical heaviness prickling in the air that steered them both in safe patterns around each other.

Announcing to the village that they were married had seemed, inarguably, like it would cross that unspoken barrier.

Jon’s still watching him, expectantly, and Martin fights for some way to trap his thoughts into making sense.

‘I thought you were happy with the way things were. Are. Between us. I mean, I’m happy if you’re happy, and I didn’t want to offend you or push you into thinking things needed to be different. Which they don’t! I mean, that’s just… not how we are, right? We’re not married. Obviously.’ It’s not his most convincing speech, all told.

‘You thought I’d be offended?’ Martin’s not sure how Jon is managing to sound like _he’s_ the confused one in this situation, but he’s pulling it off. ‘That I wouldn’t, wouldn’t want anything. I thought… You _saw_ me in the Lonely.’

Martin’s heart is ricocheting inconveniently off the walls of his throat. He manages, somehow, to say, ‘You want —’

‘I don’t see how you could think I didn’t.’

Martin, casting around for a suitable objection to express, lands on, ‘You’ve never even kissed me.’

The table is once again subject to Jon’s pressure, as he spreads his hands on the grain, one of his fingers — the one he’d tried to cut off to enter the Buried — tapping twice against the wood. ‘That, uh. That seems like something one shouldn’t do uninvited. And I didn’t want to ask, in case. I didn’t want to risk accidentally compelling you.’

That, to Martin, seems unlikely. Not impossible, because ruling anything in their lives out as impossible seems like a terrible strategy, but he knows how hard Jon tries, has been trying, to keep his limits set. He trusts him. It seems like an excuse.

Martin looks at Jon, sees him sitting there, hands tense against the table, half buried to the palm in the thick woolen sleeves of the heavy cardigan they’ve been trading between them for running errands in, his glance still burnished with a frantic gleam, and realises: Oh, he’s nervous too. The idiot.

‘You want to,’ he says, and feels the words spreading through him. He takes a step towards Jon, standing in front of him, almost brushing against his knees. Jon looks up at him from the stool. Martin watches him swallow.

‘That’s what I just said,’ Jon says, like it’s obvious, ignoring the fact that it hadn’t been. ‘I assumed you knew. And, uh. You also.’

‘Always have,’ Martin says, and thinks he deserves points for how non-strangled he manages to get that truth to sound.

Jon stands up, abruptly, and Martin had stepped too close before, and now they’re standing almost crushed together, Jon near enough his chest that Martin thinks, nonsensically, he’ll be able to hear his heartbeat. ‘Invite me,’ Jon says, very small, and very hoarse.

‘Kiss me,’ Martin says, instantly, quicker than instantly, and Jon cuts off the questioning rise that escapes him on the final word by taking hold of the front of Martin’s jumper, and rising up a little bit on his toes, and bringing his lips to land on Martin’s.

Jon is kissing him. Jon is kissing him, his lips soft and earnest, his hands holding a little too tightly to the front of Martin’s jumper, and he’s almost vibrating, a taut wire zinging with tension and interest, all his focus bent on kissing Martin like he’s never even considered doing anything else. Martin hears himself make a tiny whimper, an impossible noise of love and desperation and relief, and lets his arms settle around Jon, who’s pressing against his lips like he’s intent on chasing down the sound.

Jon moves away, but his hands stay tangled in Martin’s jumper. He’s going to twist it out of shape. Martin doesn’t care. Jon licks his lips, hesitant, involuntary, and clears his throat.

‘I’m sorry,’ Martin says, inadvertently. He hadn’t meant to apologise again. It’s worth it, though, for the way in which Jon looks at him, an admonishing frown that’s not quite able to keep out the edges of an exhausted smile.

‘It’s fine,’ he says. ‘Really, Martin. Just — next time we get married, just make sure to tell me about it.’

Martin snorts, and then Jon breaks, the exhaustion and stress and ridiculousness of the afternoon all seeming to hit him at once. He drops against Martin’s chest, burying his face in the wool he’s been mistreating and letting out a smothered hiccup of laughter, that only sets Martin off further.

He winds his arms around Jon, still a little tentative, and feels Jon’s warm weight settle more firmly against him, tension seeping from his shoulders.

‘Come to bed with me?’ he asks, and instantly backtracks as Jon tenses again, ever so slightly, clearly running through explanations in his mind. ‘Not in that way, I know. I wouldn’t ever — here, listen. Any time I ask you to come to bed, it is the most literal request that has ever been offered. And you can say no anyway, obviously, to anything, but I think it’s been a hell of an afternoon for both of us, and you seem like you could do with some rest, so. Come lie down?’

Jon’s relaxed again, and looking up at Martin with a small, wry smile. ‘Alright. If you insist. Just for a little while.’

He takes Martin’s hand again, and links their fingers together, as they head up the stairs.

*

They don’t mean to take a nap. At least, Martin hadn’t planned to, and he’s pretty sure that Jon’s plans had been to humour Martin long enough to get some newly-allowed cuddling time out of it. He’d arranged himself against the pillows, and then held out an arm quietly in awkward invitation, and Martin had folded himself under it against Jon’s chest, losing himself in the feeling of Jon’s breathing. The next thing he knows, Jon’s shifting under him, and he blinks to see the edges of the hills outside the window all alive with the still richness of the sunset, gold and bronze and whispering purple. It’s breathtaking.

‘Hey,’ he says, rolling to one side to look up at Jon. His mouth is still sleep-dry. Jon is looking down at him, and his gaze is full of an undisguised softness that puts the sunset to shame. ‘Were we asleep for long?’

‘I’ve been awake for a little while now.’

‘You could’ve moved me.’

‘I could have,’ Jon agrees. The words send a flush of joy so strongly down Martin’s spine that it nearly knocks the world sideways.

‘Suit yourself,’ he says, smiling.

Jon is still looking at him. There’s a peculiar intensity to his open glance.

‘I wasn’t drooling, was I?’ Martin asks, only half-joking.

Jon shakes his head. ‘No, that’s not… I was thinking about earlier. I just wondered if. Will you.’

It's a self-contained statement, dry and a little bit crinkly around the edges in the way that means Jon's trying to Manage His Emotions. He doesn't keep talking, and Martin props himself up on one elbow.

He's about to prod Jon into continuing, when he looks at him properly. Jon's mouth is set in a line, although it gives an apparently unconscious twitch when he sees Martin looking at him, an involuntary quirk that can't quite make it out through the controlled fold to his lips. His hands are sitting one on top of the other, the top one holding tightly to the bottom. Martin manages to catch his gaze and hold it, and Jon's hands relax.

Martin's heart begins to make an awful lot of noise in his chest.

 _He wouldn't_ , he starts to think, and then stops, because he _knows_ Jon. Jon, who had asked Martin to run away with him, who had walked into the Lonely for him, who had destroyed Peter Lukas and found Martin and known him back. Martin knows that Jon cares for him, to the point of clinging to the simple fact of that caring as an act of defiance, an attempt to preserve it an uncomplicated truth against the rest of their complicated lives. What was one more gesture on top of everything Jon had given him already, one more way to offer Martin everything he had? Knowing Jon, he'd be offended that Martin could doubt Jon’s commitment to some gesture, Martin thinks, almost hysterically.

So, alright, Martin knows what Jon's asking him. It's obvious, looking at him, that the counterpoint to _He wouldn’t_ is _Yes, he would._ He hasn’t asked the question, though, not really. Maybe he still doesn't quite trust himself not to accidentally compel Martin, and the mere thought of it lands like a bruise on Martin’s heart. Or maybe he wants the prompting, needs Martin to chime in. He doesn’t know for sure if it’ll be welcome, but Jon doesn’t show signs of un-stalling on his own initiative any time soon, and anyway — well. It might be a little selfish, but. Martin wants, really wants, to hear him say it.

‘Will I what?’ he says. It comes out a little too high-pitched to be casual.

Jon wets his lips. ‘Marry me,’ he says. His voice is low, soft, open. Martin feels it wash over him, engraving itself into his bones. He loves Jon, so much his heart hurts, with the painful pricking intensity of a half-frozen limb beside a blazing fire. He closes his eyes for a second, chasing away the prickle and heat of tears, letting himself slip under those words, fixing them in his memory. Jon's still there when he opens them.

Martin doesn't know what his face is doing, but it must reflect at least a modicum of what he's feeling, because Jon has relaxed a little, and is watching him with the hope of a smile. ‘I realise we're in bed, but I could get up to go down on one knee if you want.’

‘That's alright,’ Martin manages. ‘I wouldn’t want to disturb your cuddling. I know how sulky you get.’ He's positive his cheeks are on fire.

‘I do not get sulky,’ Jon says.

‘Sure,’ says Martin. ‘You're the clingiest man I know. can't believe I never saw it coming.’ He runs his hand over Jon's side, marvelously, fondly. ‘Jonathan Sims, human octopus.’

‘None of the above,’ says Jon. It's a joke, Martin recognises, so he lets it pass, but not without a little scrunch of his nose to let Jon know that he's got his eye on him. Jon is smiling openly now. ‘You haven't answered my question.’

 _Yes_ , thinks Martin, _yes yes yes yes, always and forever, yes_.

‘You haven't even asked me on a date yet,’ he says. It's utterly transparent. Feeble with happiness.

Jon moves his shoulders, almost a shrug, if it weren't for the careful attentiveness of the motion. ‘Alright. That, then. Whatever you want. Will you?’

Martin is helpless. Smiling is starting to hurt.

‘Will I… what? Be your, your —’ Boyfriend sounded immature, partner overly serious.

‘Whatever you want,’ Jon repeats. ‘I mean it, Martin. Whatever you want, I want it too. I'm here.’

Martin's still up on one elbow. He pushes himself up to sit against the headboard next to Jon, and moves one hand up to brush Jon's cheek, hot under his knuckles. Then he scrubs his arm over his face, involuntarily, ducking his head in a doomed attempt to stifle the joy which he's pretty sure must be overpowering the entire room.

‘Yeah,’ he says, and his voice only cracks a little. ‘Yes.’

‘To, ah, which?’

‘All of it,’ says Martin. Then he adds, ‘In good time,’ just for propriety's sake.

He can see Jon’s jaw flicker with the same thought that crosses his own mind. Neither of them say that they might not get time.

‘All the time that we have,’ Martin amends into the pause, softly and a little bit bittersweet, because he can't help it. He's been given something so marvellous, and it's a little dispiriting that it's got to be tempered by the constant fear of losing it, and there are so many things that could go wrong. So many things have already gone wrong.

Jon's eyes catch his, dragging his thoughts to a standstill. There's a determination to his face that's almost frightening. Martin wonders briefly, if this is how he looked before, walking into the Lonely.

‘We'll have it all,’ Jon tells him, with that same intensity. ‘I'm not going to let them, any of it, touch this. Look at me?’

The request is gentle, despite the blazing determination of Jon's voice. Martin looks at him, and is hit all over again by how goddamn much he loves him, like a physical blow. Hearing Jon talk like that, look at him like that — he almost believes him.

Jon, scrutinizing him in turn, gives a little satisfied nod.

‘It’ll be hard to, um.’ Martin’s heart seizes up in his throat around the words. He can’t start crying _again_ , that’s ridiculous. ‘I mean, I think there’s a church in the village? Or near the village, anyway? There’s definitely not a synagogue. I don’t know where you’d even want to, you know, hold a wedding. Not to mention the fact that the whole village thinks we’re already married. Oh, and there isn’t anybody we can invite.’ Which is a depressing thing to think at the best of times, and Martin really, _really_ wants this to be the best of times, so he clears his throat a little, throwing up a roadblock in the way of his rambling.

‘Except the cows,’ Jon says, and Martin loses it a little bit at that point. It’s so Jon, so utterly characteristically Jon, a little bit soft and a little bit aching and over it all the dry sense of humour that Martin loves more than anything in the world.

‘They are good cows,’ he agrees.

‘Well, you’ll have to choose your favourite. To be your Best Cow.’ Jon still sounds serious, because that’s how he is. Martin can’t help the splutter of laughter, silly and delighted and happy, that escapes him. He wipes his eyes, still a little bit surreptitious because being vulnerable in front of people is still difficult after the Lonely, and this is Jon, who’s so much more than just People.

Jon’s finger catches on his chin, and he brushes his thumb gentle-rough against the corner of Martin’s eye, with the same serious determined focus with which he always concentrates on touching Martin. His skin isn’t so dark that Martin can’t see his deep blush as he lets go, with another awkward little nod of satisfaction.

He meets Martin’s eyes. Martin looks at him, the deep lines and strewn scars and grey hairs and dark circles, the exhausted mess of a human that the Eye has seen fit to make him, and feels love and rage battling inside him in equal measure. Some of the tiredness is already starting to fade, in the three weeks or so they’ve been in Scotland. He looks, Martin is almost sure, less gaunt. Less hollowed. Still tired, of course, and a little bit stressed, because the residual habit of fear can’t be entirely or easily set aside, but he also looks — happy. Simply happy. The smile in his eyes is open. He loves Martin. Martin can see it in every line of his face, the soft set of his mouth. He’d have been able to see it all along, if he’d been looking right.

‘I love you,’ Martin says, at exactly the same time as Jon opens his mouth and says ‘Martin, I.’

‘Sorry,’ Martin says, and is met with a short but blistering glance.

‘No, that’s fine, whatever you need; it’s not like I was trying to have a moment.’ Which is so unbelievably grumpily wonderful of Jon that Martin leans forwards and kisses him, without even thinking about it.

Jon makes a little noise which Martin registers as surprise, and Martin makes a mental note to tell Jon he’s an idiot as soon as he gets the chance, because even if Jon didn’t have supernatural powers of all-seeing knowledge, the fact that Martin wants to kiss Jon _all the time_ is a strong contender for the absolute most glaringly obvious piece of information in existence. He’ll tell him later, because right now — 

Jon’s lips press against his. He makes another little noise, and turns his head, shifting around so that he can press up and even closer to Martin, settling his hands against Martin’s waist like they’ve always been there, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Martin raises a hand to Jon’s hair, finds a long wavy strand, buries his fingers in it almost desperately. _You’re here. We’re here._ He can feel Jon’s eyelashes brush against his cheek as they knock noses, pull away.

Jon appears to be composing himself. ‘As I was _trying_ to say, before your, ah, inconveniently-timed interruption,’ he says, in the way that’s not really a snipe but is in fact laughter, ‘I love you.’

And yes, Martin knows already. Of course he knows. How could he not know? Every atom of his body has recognised Jon, and Jon’s heart, and his, yeah, Martin’s going to say it, humanity. He’s still heart-stoppingly happy to hear it, though.

‘Love you too.’ He smiles at Jon, aware he probably looks like a giddy idiot right now. ‘Did you really just _propose_ to me? Really? Just like that?’

‘I think we’re allowed a bit of leeway from the traditionally expected order of events,’ Jon says. Then he leans over and gently, deliberately, with a little bit of awkwardness but no hesitancy whatsoever, brushes a kiss to Martin’s cheek.

Is this Martin’s life now? How in the world is Martin supposed to live like this?

‘Fair enough,’ he says. His stomach chooses that moment to give a loud growl, and Jon laughs, actually laughs, a wonderful open sound that Martin hasn't heard nearly often enough, and that he's determined to make Jon make every single day from now on, forever.

‘I'm hungry,’ he says, in response to Jon’s look of deep amusement. ‘ _Someone_ didn't get the groceries, so I don't know what there is in.’

‘I was going to cook real food,’ Jon says in the tone of grouchy that means rueful. ‘I was going to cut up vegetables. Get some use out of all the knives Daisy apparently keeps around.’

‘I'm wooed already, Jon,’ Martin assures him. ‘I fell in love with you back when you were microwaving tea in the Archives break room when you thought nobody was around to notice, I don't need you to impress me with your vegetable skills.’

‘Ready meal?’ Jon says, giving up quickly.

‘I'll put the oven on,’ Martin says. ‘I'll get you some vegetables tomorrow, if you want. See if I can come up with something to say when Mrs Aird asks me why you fled her shop.’ He smiles, still a little apologetic, but Jon just raises an eyebrow. ‘I still can't believe you can cook.’

‘I _could_ cook,’ Jon warns him, emphasising the past tense. Which is fair enough, since even before becoming a potentially-immortal avatar that feeds on statements of fear, Jon hadn't had the — ‘time’, according to Jon, which Martin translates mentally to ‘basic self-care instinct’ — for preparing meals. They'll work it out. Maybe they can find a cookbook in the village, or go on a cooking course together some day.

Maybe they’ll be able to bake their wedding cake, Martin thinks, and _What kind of cake would the cows even like, since apparently that’s who we’re inviting_ , and then he remembers he can share these thoughts with Jon and goes off into a spiral of ridiculous laughter trying to articulate them, while the frozen lasagna starts to bubble behind them in Daisy’s cranky old oven.

They’re here. Whether or not they ever make it to a wedding, Jon has promised him time, and it’s still hard to believe that the universe will let them get away with it, but it gets a little easier to believe every time Martin looks at him. In the interim, they’re together, and whatever else happens, he knows, with the aching burden of certainty, that Jon will fight to keep them that way. They’ll both fight to keep the miracle of what they’ve somehow stumbled into, hand in hand through every heartbeat of what remains.

**Author's Note:**

> in case it's not clear to anyone: i'm continually having a breakdown about how much i love jonathan sims.  
> come hang out with me on tumblr @ [archivisims](https://archivisims.tumblr.com)!  
> edit to add: thank you so much for reading, all your comments mean the world!


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